


All that Matters

by charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: ... and the Rest, Aftermath, F/M, Healing, Holding Hands, Sexual Content, Tenderness, Trauma, Wine, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmtion/pseuds/charmtion
Summary: She steps out of her skirts, takes a lung-aching breath as she sweeps the woollen shift over her head. Imagines what he is thinking, weathered-stone eyes taking in the curve of her spine in the candlelight: bare, blemished,broken—“Beautiful.”Gruff, the way he says it, as if it’s smoke being cleared from his throat, coughed up from his belly. But it sets her aflame, fire-prickles bursting beneath her skin. Turns back to him, finds him bare-chested, slides her fingers into the tight-spun hair above his heart...Sansa and Sandor share some wine, find some warmth — show their scars [8x04].





	1. Tides

He is as he always was — _alone_.

Tries to hide it as he hid it years ago: shoulders shaped square and hard, knuckles white around the half-drained cup of ale, anger writ in every tide-line that marks his face. Lifts his cup, swallows up the dregs. Filled again when he gives _that_ bark; the serving girl scurries away, eyeing up sweeter laps to dandle in. Whispers, wary looks — his tricks work as well as they always did: men look at him, think him the white-capped waves that rage at the land, beat it to pulp and powdered rock.

Not her, though. No. She sees him — _knows_ him — for what he is: an island far off from such rocky shores, some distant dot at the mercy of endless tides that turn and twist about its weathered, lonely edges. Even now, elbows slumped on the tabletop in a hall that reeks of feast and fireflame, he is that far-off isle, hope long since lost that the tide’ll ever change.

A creak makes her look away from him. Her own cup, clutched too tight between bone-white knuckles. Dark drop of wine shimmering at its rim. She catches it up with a fingertip, lifts it to her lips. Turns it, this way, that way; like a jewel, it traps the candlelight, glitters as a gemstone on her skin. She frowns down at it a moment, wonders at its shade. Crushed berries, day-old bloodstain, seawater stained by the setting sun; it twists in the tides cast by the candles, turns a thousand different shades against her milky skin. Never still. Always changing.

Looks back up as the wine-drop spreads its sweetness across her tongue. There he sits, shoulders slumping a little as he drums the tabletop beside his cup with heavy fingertips. Around him, the swell of the feast rages on: chatter and chuckle, smiles and shouts. Ebbs and flows, brushes at his back, curls around his ankles, tries with all its might to pull him in — _under_. But there he sits, an island used to weathering such storms, some crag of rock unmoved by the tides that twist around it. Lonely. So _lonely_ it hurts to look at him.

It bites at her, that hurt. Makes her breath come short and sharp — so sharp it cuts between her ribs. Daggers in her throat, pricking at her skin. She takes a swallow of wine to wash away their barbs, their blades, their _bite_. It does no good: she is drowning, swept up off her own isle lost in the midst of a wide, black sea.

_I have a choice_, she thinks in the single moment of lucidity before the crushing depths close over her head. _I can flail, or I can fight_.

She stands up, wades toward him.

*

Woodsmoke and wine-haze; neither is thick enough to stop the shapes dancing before his eyes. Skulls half-patched by skin, half-plagued by rot, bits of brain showing through their ridges. Grey as their eyes. Like weathered stone, ashes of a long-dead fire. Blackened hands, guttural shouts; icy fingers grasping at his forearms, flames turning the sky to black-and-crimson ribbons above his head.

He takes a breath, fights to steady himself — drowns in it all the same.

The serving girl is back. Fat backside, breasts showing round and white above the laces of a bodice half-undone by greedy hands in the shadows of the hall. Pretty, coarse hair and strong teeth; she flashes them in a timid smile as she pours the last of her flagon in his cup. He grunts. The sound makes her bold; fingers on his forearm, featherlight along the fabric of his sleeve. He thinks of skulls, then. Skulls and scrabbling hands as the dead rolled down around him. Snatches back his arm, snarls at her, hardens his heart as the serving girl skitters away; closes his eyes, lets the wine wash over him like waves around sea-rocks.

“She could’ve made you happy… for a little while.”

A break in the tide, that voice. Cuts through the wine-haze waves soaking the darkness behind his eyes. He blinks them open, watches how she moves: every step sliding smoothly as polished knives into skin. Her cup beside his on the tabletop, her hands folded placidly around its stem. Ivory in the candlelight, the way her skin shimmers. He looks up, takes in all her jewel-bright shades. Moonstone cheeks, ruby hair smoothed back from her brow – sapphire eyes taking up his stare, holding it.

“Used to be you couldn’t look at me.”

“That was a long time ago.” Brow arching upward, something like a smile lifting the ice-carved edges of her lips. “I’ve seen much worse than you since then.”

He watches her a moment, thinks on all she must’ve seen. _Broken in_, a man had said on the ride north. _Broken in rough_. He’d turned away from all that talk; yet now it’s all that fills his head. Charcoal gown, silver chain — but all he can see are the scarlet scars that mark the ivory skin beneath it. Hand tightens on his cup. She shifts, he looks up, the question plain in his eyes.

“He got what he deserved,” she says evenly. “I gave it to him.”

Breath catching in his throat. “How?”

“Hounds.” Dips her head, not enough to hide the smile that spreads like sunlight across her cheeks. “These days, I like dogs better than knights.” Raises her eyes again, meets his gaze as she never would all those years ago. “A hound will die for you, but never lie to you… isn’t that right, Sandor?”

His name in her mouth, his words on her tongue. The memory slices through him like a cold north wind. “Aye, that’s right, little bird.”

“I didn’t believe it then,” she says softly. “But I believe it now.”

He can only nod, cast a look at where he flecks the tabletop beneath his thumbnail. “None of it would’ve happened if you left King’s Landing with me.” Pulls a splinter out, crushes it between his fingertips as he meets her eyes again. “No Littlefinger. No Ramsay. None of it.”

“They are ash and bone — I am flesh and blood.” Candlelight limns the knife-edge of her jaw, sets her eyes to great blue pools. “That is all that matters. Here, _now_.” Gods, he is _sinking_ in their depths; she sees it — _knows_ it — tilts her head, lets a smile pull at the corners of her lips. “That is _all_ that matters, Sandor Clegane.”

“I believe it,” he says on a breath. “Here, now… I believe it, Sansa Stark.”

*

Her name in his mouth — again and _again_ — spreading across his tongue ink-dark as the wine they share long into the night. He tripped on it the first time; but now it comes easier, lays its print like footsteps on fresh-fallen snow till the ground is a well-worn maze of movement. Her name in his mouth. _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa_. Slowly, the hurt pulls away from her ribs. She looks at him — bright-eyed, scars so soft in the firelight —and loneliness melts from her like morning dew.

Once or twice, their hands touch. Fingers brushing as he reaches to refill her cup. Knuckles grazing the back of his hand as she gestures to something at the other side of the hall. Thumb resting for half a heartbeat against the blue spider’s web of her inner wrist as he tells her of being chained by outlaws beneath the earth. Wine-slow, the way they’ve pulled back from each brush, each touch. This time, she makes no move to slip her wrist free. He lifts his eyes, stares into her own; she watches his mouth go tight to see the fire burning in them, red-warm as her hair.

“Sansa,” he says. 

Oaks in the wind, the way his fingers flutter closed around her wrist. She closes her eyes. Something rises in her. Wild as a wave, but warm — so _warm_. Blood-blaze colouring her cheeks. Heat pooling in places it shouldn’t: her throat, her belly, her hips, her –

“Sansa,” he says, softer now.

It blooms in her, that heat. Makes her skin shift against the charcoal sleeves of her gown; the laces of her bodice press uncomfortably tight. _Ash and bone_. Colour at her cheeks, flushing down her throat. _Flesh and blood_. Tempest in her veins, whipping up a frenzy all the valleys of her body. _All that matters_. She swallows, tastes a spot of wine still lingering at the back of her tongue. _All that matters_…

It’s a lie. She knows it as soon as she opens her eyes, sees the proof of it right in front of her. Because in this moment — here, _now_ — all that matters is the slow rasp his thumb makes across the spider-web veins pressing blue at her wrist. All that matters is the way his weathered-stone eyes hold so steady with her own.

“Sansa,” he says again, light as the hold he keeps on her wrist.

_I have a choice_, she thinks in a single moment of lucidity the between waves of undulating heat that ebb from the press of his skin to hers. _I can flail, I can fight _—_ or I can fall_.

She stands up, weaves her fingers between his own. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB**: my first SanSan fic, hurrah ✨ will be 2 chapters, probably. So many wonderful reworkings of _that_ scene on this site; about time I add my own, with a little book-lore thrown in — _a hound will die for you_... from chapter 18 of _Clash of Kings_ — here's hoping you enjoyed it! ❤️ **P.S.** title inspired by this beautiful poem by Sanober Khan:
>
>>   
you are here,  
the moontides are here.  
and that’s all that matters.  



	2. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Mildly not safe for work... 🔥

It grows quieter as she draws him away from the fire-lit feast, fingers woven tight between his own. Darker, too. Wine-haze and thick black ale have seen the lamps forgotten. Braziers still burn low in the courtyards; but it is so dim in the galley that he stumbles over a loose stone, curses — loudly.

If she hears the quiver in his voice, senses the nerves behind his shout, she is gracious enough not to say. Doesn’t even glance back at him; only finds a candlestick as the echoes of his curse ring gruffly off the grey-stone walls. It flickers atop her fist, throws glimmers and shadow-shapes that bob before them like boats on a current. Smooth, the way she walks; he staggers as if he is seasick.

She leads him through a stone-cut archway, past all that old Ned Stark once sat amongst and treasured. Books on the shelves, furs slipping off leather trunks, trinkets and carved-bone ornaments glowing softly as she stops to light the candles littered amongst them all. _A place for wolves_, he wants to say to her, pull at the grip she keeps on him, make her stop, spill fireflame across the scars pulling tight around his lips. _A hound does not belong here_.

Doesn’t stop, though. Walks smoothly on, a little tug that jars his wrist to keep him from dawdling, leads him over the threshold of a heavy ironwood door.

He watches her move about the lord’s chambers. Sees at once that she is at home here. _A place for wolves, true enough_. Those smooth steps, those graceful fingers. She picks up a fur slithered off its hook, tidies it away before he can blink; finds a stone flagon, two cups, fills them both and turns to look at him with a hint of amusement in her gaze.

Like a moth hook-eyed by flame, the way he hulks in the doorway. Blunt fingertips nipping at the ironwood frame, boot poised as if at any moment he will turn and flee. Thinks he might — thinks he _should_ — because there is heat in his blood. Enough heat to stoke the ashes in the hearth fire-red as the seven bloody hells. He closes his eyes, swallows thickly.

“Sandor…”

He glances up from the floor. “Did it happen here?”

A tight nod. No words.

“Could go somewhere else,” he says gruffly. “_Anywhere_ else.”

“No.” Her voice is clear, cool as the gaze she rests on him. “He is ash and bone — we are flesh and blood… and we belong here.”

“Both of us?”

“Yes. Both of us.”

Tarries for half a heartbeat more, then he steps inside the room, eyes brushing at the flagstones as he leans back on the heavy door to close it. The lock rattles in its catch; they both look up at the sound. He hears her breathe — softly, so _softly_ — watches as her lips part. Tongue follows the breath, sweeping at the swell of her shell-pink lip. He bites at his cheek, shifts a little on his feet.

A speck of mud-flecked snow chips off the edge of one boot, melts a black pool onto the grey stone floor. His eyes fall on it at the same time as hers. Mouth opens to stumble an apology – but she wastes no time.

“Take them off.”

Should question it. Should protest. Should keep his boots on his feet. Should put his shoulder to the door and vanish into the grey gloom of the corridors, the endless black night. Should meet her eyes and ask her what all this _means_. Should —

She lifts her gaze, and he sees that her eyes brook no argument. Flecks of sea-ice, hard-set as the line of her jaw, the tilt of her head, the square edge of her shoulders. Queen, shield-maiden, warrior of old, the way she stares at him — but he sees her fingers tremble where they rest on the back of the chair before the fire.

He slides toward her, bare feet stinging against the flagstones. Flexes his toes full of the bearskin splashed beneath them. She lifts her hand from the ironwood chair, smooths down the pleated leather of her bodice. He listens to the rasp of it; _feels_ the sound deep in his belly. Stares at her shoulder as he skates a fingertip along a scarlet curl worked loose from its braid behind her ear.

Shimmers like water gilded by sunlight; springs back as he releases it. Hears her breathe — shallow, soft — sees the ice in her eyes begin to melt.

*

She doesn’t know what to call this heat that warms her blood. Hasn’t felt it for so long. Spreads so slowly. Sun-warmed honey seeping in every pore of her skin, sweep of vein, notch of bone till she’s bursting with its glow.

Everything feels heightened. Pitter-patter of snow at the window, swell of old woodsmoke powdering the air. Velvet blush bruising her porcelain cheek. Wants him to reach out a fingertip, trace the blood-blaze flushing her skin, follow the trail it forges down her throat. But his hands are in her hair — bone-blunt fists feathered by fire-streak strands — holding her steady as she slides to her tiptoes, lifts her face toward him.

They fit together the way a mountain-range presses its peaks and curves into the contours of the sky. Brow and lip and chin, some sweet dark song as timeless as it is evergreen. He draws back; she breathes his breath. By the time the heels of her feet have hit the floor, they are beside the bed. His hands give up their grip on her waist, settle at her hips. Flex there, knotting the charcoal skirts between his fingers; she untangles the silver chain from around her neck, meets his eyes as it clatters to the flagstones underfoot.

“Sansa.”

A prayer, the way he says her name. Like she’s the Warrior that’ll see him safe in battle, the Crone that’ll cast light on his dark thoughts — the Maiden who will smooth away the sting of scars upon his skin. Her hands find his face, fingertips ghosting the contours of his cheekbones, the ragged scruff of his beard, the down-turned pad of his lower lip. He presses a kiss to her thumbprint, catches her hand, holds it to his chest.

“Flesh and blood,” he says, something like wonder in his eyes.

She nods, gaze flickering from his heavy brow to his parted lips. “All that matters.”

“All that matters.”

Turns, then. He wastes no time, makes quick work of the laces at her back, slides the sleeves off her shoulders. She steps out of her skirts, takes a lung-aching breath as she sweeps the woollen shift over her head. Imagines what he is thinking, weathered-stone eyes taking in the curve of her spine in the candlelight: bare, blemished, _broken_ —

“Beautiful.”

Gruff, the way he says it, as if it’s smoke being cleared from his throat, coughed up from his belly. But it sets her aflame, fire-prickles bursting beneath her skin. Turns back to him, finds him bare-chested, slides her fingers into the tight-spun hair above his heart. Sits down on the bed, pulls him flush against her.

On her back and she wants nothing — nothing more than _this_. Shocks her to want it, him, this: a man’s hands tracing shapes upon her skin, fingers dipping between her legs, warm words rumbled in her ear that make her gasp and gush and grind up against the grip he keeps on her _there_ — just there, till she’s tipping back her head, streaking fire across the pillows, moaning up at the velvet canopy of the bed.

Thought she’d never want it again — slick, hot flesh pushing inside her, bruising, burning, bursting — but she’s spreading her thighs and gripping at the heavy slabs of muscle on his back, urging, asking.

Full and — for a moment — it makes her think of ash and bone, bruises, _before_. But this is different: another time, another world, another him, another her. She is full, so _full_ she could cry out from the feel of it, the pulse, the stretch, the deep, sweet ache that grows and grows till her belly is fire overflowing, heat pooling between her hipbones, tides of warmth ebbing every inch of her skin, crashing waves behind her eyes.

“Sansa.” A whisper into the shell of her ear. “Sansa?”

Dives for his neck, presses her lips to his pulse-point. “Sandor — _Sandor_.”

Her turn to pray. Not with words — with the way she wraps herself around him, cants her hips up, toes curling beneath her soles as she feels the rush of waves and heat and twisting currents crest and explode and shatter inside her body. Threatens to carry her away — ebb and flow, ceaseless stirring tides — but he is there: arms like anchor-chains keeping her steady, body a rock on which she is beached, bones an island that hold her safe in the midst of a wide, black sea.

*

Quiet night, grows darker as the candles gutter and go out. He has an arm behind his head; she lies on her stomach, furs heaped round her hips, back bared to the red-warm air of the bedchamber. Cheek to the linen as she watches him read her body in the moonlight, hands on her skin, seeing and feeling all at once.

“Here?” he asks.

“A gift from Joffrey.”

Fingertips ghosting the curve of her back. “And here?”

“Ramsay. He liked to test the sharpness of his hunting-knife upon my skin.”

Thumb dipping down a scarlet pit. “Cut deep. Must’ve hurt.”

“Mm, a little.” Rolls onto her side, fingers finding his, gripping them tight. “I was carved of ice back then. Only warmth could’ve hurt me.”

He watches as she holds their interlocked fingers to her cheek. “Melted you. Made you weak.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “A kind word cut more than Ramsay’s knife back then. Gentle hands to help me dress, the cook asking if the stew was to my liking… that chipped away at me.” The tide-line in her brow smooths out. “Ramsay never did.”

Smooths his thumb along the edge of her cheekbone. “Ash and bone.”

“Yes, he is,” she whispers. “They all are – but not you.” Lifts to her elbow, moves lithely up the bed till she’s fitted against his side. “You are here with me… aren’t you, Sandor?”

Fingertips slotting into the scars strewn like scarlet scars across her back; he pulls her closer. “Aye.” Brow bent to hers — sky and mountain-range, the way their faces fit together. “Always, Sansa.”

Her head on his chest as she sleeps. Folded into him, arm thrown across the hard plain of his belly. He presses a kiss to her brow, keeps watch all night: a soldier standing sentinel till the dawn-tides wash the ink from the sky, bathe them both in honeyed light — only then does he sleep, joins her in her dreams of wolves and hounds running together in a place they both belong.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB**: trauma dealt with _gently_ — I hope you thought so, too. A third chapter may follow if I am struck with inspiration for an aftermath; but for now, I am content with this end: dreams at dawn, a bit of peace in all that quiet… ❤️


End file.
